427. Qualia, 7

(Rose)

I’ve killed a friend. It feels awful.

Aïsshean ate some of his flesh to help her regeneration. Seeing her ripping some muscles apart and eating them, it was also painful.

Behind us, there’s this set of very plain white doors I’ve kept shut.

The sounds of the beast eating my friend became unbearable. I left this church like room and went outside in the blizzard.

~

My bagpack lied there, with the last blankets from the collection I had.

I’m feeling sad and hollow. I wait for a little while in the cold, until she emerges again. There’s blood all over her dark body.

We return to the tower we discussed in previously. The mood is atrocious now.

There she lits a fire by spitting flames like a small dragon without wings.

R - I’m... sorry, for what happened with my friend. I didn’t realise his ambition...

A - ...

R - Could you help me returning to Earth? I can’t fly right now.

A - I will help for that.

R - How many things and people have you now stopped from reaching the source?

A - In ten years... You were the first.

I expected more...

A - Even if it takes a hundred years... Someday one of my sisters will return to me, with a solution.

R - Sisters... How many are you?

A - Four of us are sharing that curse.

I’m smiling. Coincidences feel like fate.

R - You have an interesting family it would seem.

A - We always shared the same sight about the world. We, still today, all agree...

R - Lucky you. Protecting the world together, like angels.

A - Just... Preventing the cataclysm from ever happening again. We want to avoid a second extinction.

R - You think there really is enough power below us to destroy the world again?

A - Yes. I’ve seen it. It could happen again as it did on that day, from here, one day, suddenly.

Without warning, someday, the life on Earth could be ravaged again, and not recover or adapt this time.

To prevent such tragedy, there’s only her.

To remove the risk forever, her sisters are working on two different solutions somewhere in Europe.

A - I can see, that you would like to help us. You’re concerned.

R - Is there something I could do to help? Even if it is just checking on your family to make sure they’re alright.

A - I know they are. We’re still linked. I feel it. They all are dormant, but alive, active. One day they will rise and set their plan actively into motion. I don’t need your help Rose. Even if it was to guard this place alongside with me.

R - I see. That reminds me of when I wanted to help Licht. She told me it was her fight, her life.

A - ...

I’m politely being turned away.

I’m not allowed from getting involved in something important because it’s too personal for them.

R - I’m a little disappointed if the only thing I can do for you is simply to stand aside for ever. But I will respect it.

A - Thank you. You’re a good person Rose. There are although two things you could do for me. The first one is to share some of your knowledge regarding the world below.

R - I would be happy to do so.

A - And the other one would be... to believe in us, to believe in me and our plan.

R - To trust you, to have faith in your idea of success?

A - Yes... Please have faith in me, for all of us I speak for. Trust my family will make it right and safe here. Have confidence in our life, that someday, the source won’t represent the world’s threat of demise anymore, but hope for the future rather...

~

The sanctuary of the weapon that ended the world. She can’t tell me what it truly was before nor where it really came from. Her best guess is it came from the third city of the sun.

But she can tell me with absolute confidence what it will become in the far future. Maybe a hundred years from now.

The source of destruction will become a place for hope, whatever it can be. But more importantly, the history-ending weapon will be disarmed by her brethren, one way or another. That’s what really matters.

Her faith is strong. Not as strong as the modern gods have, but praiseworthy for a human.

Hope is shapeless. Avoiding a catastrophe that is a repeated explosion of the thing here, is a clear goal however.

A - Come back in twenty years to see.

R - Twenty years...

A - You could come to check once a decade, but I don’t expect things to change that fast.

R - I’m not confident my human lifespan will be able to follow your vision to its rightful conclusion. But I will keep my trust in you along the way.

Trusting this new friend here, that the worst that could be will not come to be.

That her family will succeed, and prevent another white day from ever being unleashed again from this source hidden here.

I want to have faith in her as well. Even if it’s not that easy.

~

Twenty years... It’s far too distant for me to foresee. Who can? Even a decade is a long stretch. In a decade or less, even a great war can occur and the world change greatly. No one can make ten years forecasts upon their life. It’s enough to turn anonymous into heroes and their legends to go from glory to pitiful end.

There’s just too much chaos. There always has been in history.

And it’s especially true for me today in a different context. Even a year forecast is a big leap of faith truly.

I guess where she is, here, isolated from the world and without visitors, it’s easier to make long term plans. There are far less variables to stir things around. Even the weather never changes up here on this palace.

Like very different species, we live at different speeds. In a hundred years, this place could still float exactly as it is today, and Aïsshean could still be there to guard what it holds.

By then, no more humans could ever come to visit this place. It’s the first thing I informed her of.

There may still be some pockets of life remaining here and there today, but humanity is unmistakably facing its twilight years on Earth.

In the next century, only a few children will be alive, scattered.

In two centuries, there will be less than a dozen of their descendants most probably.

In three or four centuries, the last Sapiens on Earth will vanish.

Although it’s obviously a risky prediction in the sea of chaos, that’s a realistic expectation given the situation and the knowledge I have.

She thinks I should check upon the cities of sun.

A - If humanity is to live a little longer, that’s where it will probably happen. Where technology was at its apogee. You’ll have to find the network of the last civilisation of technology. There were these historical cities acting like capitals or city-states, but they were also secondary sites that could still harbour good human technologies, and life.

There are likely pockets that still thrive, and hold more than I’ve seen so far.

That is where my steps will now lead me toward. The remnants of the civilisation of the sun.

Europe didn’t hold that civilisation. I have to travel further away if I want to visit its ruins.

Much farther. Toward another and older meaning of a new world.

And my first clue toward that lost civilisation is the second city of the sun itself. The legend holds it was built a long time ago in the land of the blue sky.

She confirmed where it was. It’s Mongolia. Thousands of kilometres away. The eastern ends of Eurasia.

And that’s the closest clue I could find.

R - I will begin heading east then...

Heading toward the orient...

I think she smiled.

She lost most of her humanity a decade ago, and slowly keeps losing what little is left of it.

She lives for her duty.

Yet, the idea of me walking my way to the other end of our continent, I could see it amused a lingering human part of her for a moment.

She’ll help me to get down, and that will be it.

Our lives will resume as normal.

It was weird. But we’ve met.

A - Godspeed, Rose.

~